


Hargreeves Vs. The Creepy Crawly Death Dealer

by bacondoughnut



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Brotherly Love, Drabble, Family Shenanigans, Feel-good, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, LMAO, One Shot, Sibling Bonding, Spiders, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 19:03:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18394472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacondoughnut/pseuds/bacondoughnut
Summary: In which Klaus is afraid of spiders, and his brothers are Brothers™.





	Hargreeves Vs. The Creepy Crawly Death Dealer

"Y'know, Klaus, you could always just swallow your pride and ask for help."

"I would, I really would," Klaus said earnestly. "Only pride leaves a shit aftertaste, and I'm fresh out of vodka to wash it down with."

Ben looked up and Klaus and thought about changing his statement. He took in Klaus's oh so dignified position of standing on top of a chair in his pajamas, with smudged eyeliner, staring unblinkingly at one of the kitchen tiles and decided that Klaus had no pride left to swallow.

Admittedly, Ben's opinion of the situation might have a bias. Dead as he already was, a spider couldn't touch him nor he it. But while he didn't exactly seek them out before, he didn't think he'd ever had the same reaction as Klaus did even when spiders  _could_ touch him. In a way, he kind of liked spiders. Hadn't they seen enough weird, messed up shit by now to not be scared of a bug no bigger than their fingernails?

"Anyway, I wouldn't  _need_ help if the little beasty wasn't blocking the exit," Klaus said, indicating the spider and then the doorway. It was a good two feet to the left of the doorway, and nowhere near the walls. "Dastardly damn thing."

Ben resisted the urge to facepalm.

He was thinking of some other advice to offer Klaus on the matter when Klaus jumped, offering a smile and a wave towards the doorway in what appeared to be an effort to look normal. That never had been one of Klaus's talents. Ben turned to see Diego standing in the doorway, eyebrows drawn together, looking torn between amusement, concern, and apathy.

"Diego! My favorite brother!" Klaus greeted him. Ben opened his mouth to be offended but them Klaus turned to him--which Diego would see as turning to empty space--and added, "You know what I mean."

"Do I even wanna ask what's going on in here?"

"Nothing's going on in here, nothing at all," Klaus said.

"Ask him to get rid of the spider, you infant," Ben said.

"You're an infant," Klaus hissed back.

And Ben was briefly glad that Diego couldn't hear him, because he couldn't help but laugh at that entirely baffled and somewhat offended look Diego gave Klaus after, at least in his perception, being called an infant out of nowhere. 

After a second, Diego gestured to Klaus and asked, "Wanna tell me why you're on a chair?"

"That's what there for."

"Wanna tell me why you're  _standing_ on a chair?" Diego amended.

"I wanna live," Klaus answered. Then he scrunched up his face and said, "Well, that's an overstatement. Anyway, I don't wanna die  _here."_

"Is--" Diego started, momentarily pausing to look at Klaus. For a hot second there, Ben thought he was going to ask Klaus what the hell that correction meant. Instead Diego just said, "Is the floor lava?"

"I am an adult."

Ben snickered at that. Klaus flipped him off.

Probably wondering what exactly Klaus was giving the bird to, Diego looked over at Ben. Instead he saw through Ben, and spotted the spider on the floor. Or the 'hellbeast from hell,' as Klaus called it. Understanding dawned on his face, and he turned to look back at Klaus to say, "An adult still holding on to a fear of spiders? Man up."

"Big talk, coming from the guy who wouldn't get a tattoo with me last month because...Oh, why was that, Diego?"

"Guess I'll just leave you with your new friend then," Diego said, evidently unwilling to comment on the tattoo remark.

And Klaus, Ben had no doubt, would have been just petty enough to let Diego walk away. If it hadn't been for the spider taking a step forward--which was literally like a centimeter, Ben couldn't stress enough how tiny those fucking bugs are. Klaus squeaked and moved to take a mirror step backwards, before seeming to remember he was standing on top of a chair, which somewhat limited his options.

Frantically waving after Diego, Klaus said, "Wait! Wait, wait, Diego!"

"We should name it," Ben offered, and Klaus took a second to look at him like he was the weird one before turning his attention back to Diego. 

"Diego it wants to kill me!"

"How about Victor?"

"It's a spider, Klaus," Diego said, leaning back against the doorway. He looked like he was fighting a smile. Diego was always fighting smiles, Ben noticed.

Klaus pointed at the spider and said, with more sincerity in his features than was strictly necessary given the circumstances, "That thing is evil incarnate."

Diego glanced over at the spider before looking back over at Klaus with disbelief. He cleared his throat and said, "Klaus? You can literally talk to ghosts. When we were preteens we were stopping armed robberies. And you're telling me you're scared of a tiny little insect?"

"It's an arachnid," Ben corrected, despite knowing Diego wouldn't hear.

"Yes," Klaus said, nodding. "That's exactly what I'm telling you. Except it's not a tiny little insect, it's an eight-legged harbinger of terror and suffering, and it wants me dead."

"I'm honestly just surprised you know the word  _harbinger_."

"Diego, this is serious," Klaus whined, jumping once more when the spider moved again. Poor Victor, he probably wasn't even aware of all the trouble his mere presence was causing. Although that said, he was even less scary now that he had a name.

Ben shook his head and walked over to sit down on the table next to Klaus. He said, "And you complain when I call you overdramatic."

Rolling his eyes, Diego murmured something that sounded like ' _fine_ _'_ and walked over towards Victor. It looked like he was about to step on the little guy, only he froze when Klaus stopped him by shouting, "Wait, Diego! Don't kill it!"

And although he now looked possibly more confused than he had been to start with, Diego didn't squish the bug. He just took a step back and looked over at Klaus. "Evil incarnate? You don't want me to kill it?"

"God no, what if spiders can have ghosts? And then Victor's ghost follows me around forever? That's the opposite of solving my problem. Think, Diego."

Ben couldn't help but smile when Klaus used his name for the spider.

Diego blinked. "Who's Victo--Did you name the spider? Why Victor?"

"Why Victor?" Klaus asked, looking down at Ben.

Ben shrugged. "Victor Frankenstein."

It didn't look like he understood that, but Klaus nodded and turned back to Diego, repeating, "Victor Frankenstein."

"You've read Frankenstein?"

"It's a book?" Klaus asked, which pretty much answered that question. He shook his head, then said, "No. But I've seen Frankenweenie, does that count?"

Diego and Ben both facepalmed.

Puffing out a world weary sigh, Diego looked down at the spider still on the kitchen tile and then back up at Klaus, still on the chair. It looked like he was wondering why he'd even stopped to engage in this when he asked, "If you don't want me to kill him, what the hell d'you want me to do?"

Momentarily, Klaus looked stumped. Ben wasn't sure he'd thought that far ahead. "Catch him?"

Once more, Diego sighed. But, ever the hero, he walked over to the kitchen cabinets and retrieved a glass. Then he walked back towards the doorway and swiftly put the glass down over Victor, effectively trapping him there. He dug around in his pockets for a second before finding a flyer of some sort and sliding that under the cup so he could pick it up without setting Victor free once more, then made his way out of the kitchen, muttering something about having better things to do with his time.

"Happy now?" Ben asked.

"I'm always happy."

"Liar."

Diego reappeared in the kitchen a minute or so later, sans Victor. There was a hint of a chuckle in his voice when he said, "There. You're safe now."

"My hero," Klaus said in a sing-song, smile wide on his face as he jumped down from his chair. Diego rolled his eyes as Klaus pulled him into a melodramatic hug, lilting, "Thank youuuu."

"If you pickpocket me I'll cut you," Diego said, and Klaus promptly broke the hug.

Ben found his thoughts wandering back to Victor. He found himself wondering if maybe he just liked spiders because they were misunderstood. Sure, they were a little bit creepy at face value. Not the most welcoming of creatures, Ben could grant that. But they were really just little wanderers, just like anyone else. Trying to find a place in a world much bigger and much louder than they were. A task that must've only become a harder one when no much of that big loud world thought they were untrustworthy or scary, and only wanted to squish them.

Ben found himself wondering how much of Klaus hadn't wanted to Diego to kill Victor because of a potential haunting, and how much of Klaus hadn't wanted Diego to kill Victor because maybe, just a little bit, Victor reminded him of himself. Of his family.

And then Ben realized it was just a spider, and he had to find something else to think about if he wanted to keep calling Klaus the overdramatic one.


End file.
